Back to the Office?
The office is experiencing a (identity) crisis: remote working calls for a re-design of labour in the traditional sense and hybrid models that combine digital and physical presence. In future there will still be work spaces. Just not in the shape and form we are used to.
The last year has challenged the concept of the office in its entirety. It is not any further the place where we spend 40 hours per week. Work and living space have become one and the same. The German Institute for the Future (Deutsche Zukunftsinstitut) has named this tendency to amalgamate the home and the workplace ‘Hoffice’. A concept that has been invented during the pre-pandemic sharing-economy by the Swede Christofer Gradin Franzen – and which describes a co-working-model based within the home, where strangers network, where exchange happens and where they motivate each other. This is entirely conceivable to take place in the future.
Of course, digital technologies have been making it possible to work from any place around the world for some time. However, the potential these opportunities presented had not really been unlocked until Covid19. The ‘experiment home-office’, forced into existence through the pandemic, turned out to be successful and, just as it is with every transformation, there is no going back. The home-office has irrevocably changed how we work. Tech giants such as Twitter, Facebook and Google already want to make it possible for employees to only work from home from now on. Even institutions like Deutsche Bank are planning to send 40 % of their employees back into their homes. More flexibility whilst reducing office related expenditure for the CEOs and at the same time more flexibility and more free time for employees - this appears to be a win-win situation. Remote working also creates opportunities with regards to recruitment: specialists can be employed country-wide if they only need to be at the head office for some days. Studies show that currently office spaces are only being utilized between 20 % and 30 %. Thus entrepreneurial strategies with regards to work modes of the future must be found. Already last August Telefonica Deutschland defined the working-together of the future by dividing it into five steps: the 8,500 employees should be able to work successively, when each individual is at his or her most productive and should independently arrange their working hours between 6AM and 11PM according to their own needs and biorhythms. The management’s focus here is on the end result, and not where and when it is being worked towards. This way virtual meetings become the new standard and journeys are reduced by 70 % - a pioneering push in the direction of the ‘new normal’, where digital ways of working, individual flexibility and maximum productivity do not exclude each other.
73 % of the remote workers interviewed missed social interactions.
Angetreten für mehr Klimaschutz und Wertschöpfung: Das Team „DüsselRheinWupper“ hat den Landeswettbewerb zur Wasserstoff-Mobilität gewonnen.
However, the home-office does not only hold advantages. Routine jobs can be achieved smoothly whilst working from home – but innovation processes and diversification projects are significantly harder to accomplish. The reason for this is oftentimes isolation, missing motivation and distractions just as the lack of collaboration and communication with colleagues. Large corporations already have ‘Chief Remote Officers’, who are supposed to maintain the loyalty and connectedness within the company. According to a study conducted by the Fraunhofer Institut, 73 % of the remote workers interviewed missed social interactions, 51 % direct cooperation and 40% the division between work and home life. The solution could be hybrid models, which combine working from home and working in the office. Last October, when Dropbox announced that it is was going to become a virtual-first business and that remote working was to become the norm for all employees, it also announced the creation of specific spaces for working together in person. In a number of different locations – the so-called ‘studios’ – the tech company wants to promote the development of a sense of community instead of isolated individual working. Dialogue motivates and inspires. Co-working spaces, private or public, as an alternative to the home-office have seen a boom on a global scale - at the same time, due to the decentralisation of the workplace, businesses are increasingly looking for low risk, scalable and flexible work spaces. The overlap of the two trends of remote working and rural flight, both accelerated by the pandemic, is illustrated by co-working spaces popping up even beyond urban spaces.
a platform that creates a feeling of home, belonging and identity.
So, in future, what are we looking for in the office at all? According to Vitra’s office-specialist it is collaboration, community and belonging. As the decision for an office space will be taken consciously in the future, employees should feel comfortable in that space. “The existence of the office is justified, as the physical working together shapes business culture and identity. And businesses have to retain their culture in order to be successful,” says Britta von Lackum, Specialist Workplace Development at Vitra. However, she says that the office is currently experiencing an evolutionary development. According to her it makes no longer sense to dress the office up as a home from home and to aim for colleagues to want to linger as long as possible. Instead of this Vitra has developed a solution for post-pandemic knowledge work in a shared-workspace-modus: the club office. The office as an exciting space that people enjoy leaving the home-office for. As a platform that creates a feeling of home, belonging and identity, just like a club house. As the heart of the business, promoting cooperation and innovation even in the times of social distancing – through creative workshops, one-to-one dialogue and team events. For Vitra the office of the future is characterised by three zones: the public zone for exchange and retreat, the semi-public zone for team- and non-territorial work and private rooms for individual and focussed work. As opposed to the open office the club office does not have dedicated desks, but workshops, open areas for team events and meeting rooms, a large table for meetings and briefings, just as social areas like garden, bar or library, where one can interact with colleagues free from digital intrusion…to then just slip away to the office at home for repetitive work without distractions. •
HOFFICE - Regeln
• Coworking zu Hause: Ziel von Hoffice ist, Ideen mit anderen zu teilen und möglichst zu sein .
• Coworker finden sich online in sozialen Netzwerken zusammen.
• Das Arbeiten beim Host ist kostenlos, für Kaffee und Getränke darf gespendet werden.
• Voraussetzung fürs Hosting: WLAN, Steckdosen, ein Raum fürs Telefonieren und genügend freie Arbeitsfläche.
• Jeder Hoffice-Tag beginnt mit einer kurzen Vorstellungsrunde, in der jeder Teilnehmer seine Tagesziele definiert.
• Gearbeitet wird 45 Minuten am Stück, in den 15-minütigen Pausen tauschen sich die Coworker aus.
• Co-working at home: The goal of “Hoffice” is to share ideas with others and be as productive as possible.
Words Karolina Landowski